2014-02-25

The more welcomed LED bulb

There has been much advancement in LED technology in the last few years, allowing new applications. The manufacturing cost of LEDs has been relatively expensive because the process used a sapphire substrate. Researchers at Purdue University have developed a process for replacing the sapphire with inexpensive silicon. Currently, a 30-watt LED bulb can cost about $30, but this number should come
down dramatically with the application of the new research.

Earlier generations of LED bulbs gave LED lighting a bad name within the lighting industry as they provided very low levels of light and produced poor color reproduction. Older generations can generally be identified by having a bubbly front lenses with multiple LEDs whilst new power LEDs are flat and contain three or four power LEDs behind a glass front, similar to a halogen. More advanced LED chips are now used from manufacturers such as CREE that produce the same clear white light often associated with halogen. Older inferior LEDs should only be used for decorative purposes not ambient lighting. High power LEDs now offer a true low energy lighting solution.

Now the financial and environmental benefits have been made abundantly clear you just need to decide which LED bulb is the most suitable for your lighting needs. The most important and obvious consideration is the physical size of the bulb. If the LED needs to dimmable then this opens up more potential problems as not all LED bulbs are dimmable, dimmable LEDs are more expensive and won't work with all dimmer switches. Also the minimum and maximum dimmer switch loads for LEDs are different as de-rating factors must be calculated, MyLED can help you find the perfect match. anty881209wong 140225